Who is the NHL goaltender of the decade?

Travis Yost

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A couple of weeks ago, we created All-Decade teams for each NHL franchise. When we ran through the goaltending duos, an interesting debate opened up: If you had to choose one goalie to represent the NHL from this past decade, who would it be?

My first inclination was that it had to be Henrik Lundqvist of the New York Rangers, who played more minutes than any goalie not named Carey Price this decade. If we compare the two head-to-head, the numbers suggest the Swedish netminder was better – and King Henrik put up those stats behind definitively weaker defensive teams.

But others pointed out that goaltenders around the league – those who may not have played as much, but who may have carried better performance over the years – may also be worthy of consideration.

A combination of longevity and productivity should ultimately decide the decade’s most valuable goaltender, but how those measurement components are weighed may vary from person to person. And then there is the hardware component. Bring that in, and Boston’s Tuukka Rask becomes part of the conversation. So too does Washington’s Braden Holtby.

For a fair comparison, let’s try and bring as many of these components as we can into the fold. Below, I sampled 15 goaltenders – any goaltender who faced 18,000 or more shot attempts over the decade – and their performance over that span. I also included two separate measurement criteria: individual hardware (the Vezina Trophy), as well as team hardware (the Stanley Cup).

I sorted the table based on Evolving Hockey’s Goals Saved Above Expectations, which measures actual versus expected goals for each goaltender based on shot volume and shot quality against.

But depending on what you care about (perhaps it’s raw save percentage, perhaps it’s goals saved above average, perhaps it’s the hardware), there are only really a handful of choices.

Let’s start at the top:

The case for Henrik Lundqvist: Lundqvist ended the decade third in raw save percentage, third in goals saved above average, and first – by an almost unbelievable margin – in goals saved above expectations. The reality is that Lundqvist played behind poorly built Rangers teams that were leaky defensively for years. The lone reason why the Blueshirts remained competitive in many of those years was their decisive goaltender advantage in virtually any matchup, which counteracted some serious deficiencies within the skater ranks. Lundqvist also won his lone Vezina Trophy in 2012, though with these numbers, you wonder why he didn’t win more.

The case against Henrik Lundqvist: This one is rather simple – Lundqvist, at the end of the day, was part of a team. And while we cannot possibly hold the front office’s roster mistakes against him, Lundqvist has yet to win a Stanley Cup. Many of his competitors have one.

The case for Carey Price: Lundqvist and Price are strikingly similar goalies, but the argument for Lundqvist ahead of Price is really a contextual one – New York’s teams were porous defensively, while Montreal’s teams (especially during Price’s prime) were not. If you aren’t looking at numbers that adjust for this criteria, Price actually inches out Lundqvist. His save percentage and goals saved above average were second for qualified goaltenders.

The case against Carey Price: It’s hard not to account for those defensive disparities and Price, like Lundqvist, doesn’t have the hardware to match up with other goalies around the league. Moreover, if you are just looking at the raw numbers, it is impossible to take him over Tuukka Rask – more in this in a moment. Price won the Vezina in 2015, but he’s still searching for the elusive Stanley Cup.

The case for Tuukka Rask: No goalie had better raw numbers than Rask. The Finnish netminder stopped better than 92 per cent of shots in all situations over the course of the decade, more than 100 goals better than what league-average goalies would have turned away over that same span. And then there are the accomplishments. Rask is only one of two goalies (Braden Holtby) to have both a Vezina Trophy and a Stanley Cup, and is increasingly a lock for a spot in the Hall of Fame.

The case against Tuukka Rask: Rask’s decade has been more or less flawless, but you can’t evaluate Rask without recognizing that he may have been in the most favourable position in the league – backstopping a team anchored by players like Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand, and Zdeno Chara, three superstars renowned for their defensive play. Over this timespan, Boston was fourth in shots allowed and second in expected goals against. Rask was a huge part of this team’s defensive success, but he wasn’t without help.

The case for Sergei Bobrovsky: Bobrovsky is probably the best goalie in the second tier – the only goalie with two Vezina trophies over the decade, and the goalie with the single most impressive single season on record. During the 2016-17 season, Bobrovsky stopped more than 93 per cent of shots and saved 45 goals above expectations. I have to provide the defensive heat map from that season because I’m not sure I’ve ever seen more shots generated from the net-mouth (via HockeyViz).

The case against Sergei Bobrovsky: No Stanley Cups like Lundqvist and Price, the raw and adjusted numbers are marginally behind all three above-referenced goalies, and I’m not sure what to do about his disastrous 2019-20 if we start evaluating at the single-season level.

There are perhaps outside arguments one could make for the likes of Corey Crawford and Marc-Andre Fleury, the two goaltenders who have backstopped multiple Stanley Cup winning teams.

But I think it’s clear Crawford and Fleury played on elite teams over the years like Rask, but didn’t carry the same type of year-over-year performance that the Bruins goalie did. To that end, I would find it hard to give either of those veterans serious consideration.

In the end, my answer remains Lundqvist. Despite the lack of team accomplishments, he was the league’s most impressive goalie of the decade.

I did change my runner-up answer through this exercise, though. I think the data makes a compelling argument for Rask as the second-place finisher ahead of Price and the rest of the field.

Now it’s your turn. Who is your goaltender of the decade?

Data via NHL.com and Evolving Hockey